Marathon Viewing 2025's Holiday Movies: The Hits, The Misses, and The Guilty Pleasures.

It is the season to lounge on the sofa and consume a tin of holiday pastries in front of a good movie, a awful feature, or one that’s so bad it’s good.

This year, a crop of latest Christmas films hopes to be part of our holiday traditions—maybe even finding a spot alongside timeless staples like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (we won’t debate it).

Thus, in a vital public service to separate the winners from the losers, and to embrace the holiday mood, I binged as many new festive movies as possible in a single day.

First Up: The Jonas Brothers' Holiday Flick

Starting, optimistically, on a high. This film is the only 2025 entry on a popular review site's list of the best 100 holiday films of all time.

The popular band are stuck in the UK after finishing their global concert series and must make it back for Christmas. Their endeavors are hindered by an malevolent Father Christmas, who bursts into melody to announce they won’t get home until they “rediscover their brotherly magic.”

The back-and-forth between the squabbling siblings is amusing even for the uninitiated, while devotees will undoubtedly catch lots of references as they endeavor to get back using all transportation available.

It’s a travelogue of mishaps.

It’s not an all-time classic, but is excellent for devotees and a solid start to the day.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄 for Jonas Brothers fans or 🎄🎄🎄 for their relatives who will have to sit through it.

8.45am - Tinsel Town

A-list actor Kiefer Sutherland stars as a celebrity cast a "panto".

“A panto-what?” asks Sutherland’s “hard-to-work-with” and aging lead Brad Mack, who has seen better days and whose representative has misled him into thinking he’s appearing in high-class London stage.

His pantomime cast-mates inform him he’s playing Buttons. “Oh no I’m not,” he insists angrily. You can guess their response. Unless you’re ignorant of traditional panto catchphrases.

There are some hilarious moments, some touching side stories, and the rest of the cast is brilliant, too.

It’s the sort of feature that would be a bit tacky at a different time, but is a lot of fun at Christmas.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Morning: Christmas Karma

An actor pops up at the start of this film, too, calling someone a mug for the second film in a row. Is this a budding festive ritual?

This time, he’s a singing black cab driver who collects Mr Sood, the modern take on Mr Scrooge from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

Mr Sood is played by a star of Kunal Nayyar and Christmas Karma is directed by Bend It Like Beckham’s Gurinder Chadha. The classic narrative progresses as the tight-fisted Mr Sood is haunted by the apparitions of Christmas past, present and future, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This Indian Scrooge is at least different from all the others, but sadly he’s not very captivating and Nayyar’s acting is flat—a significant issue when he’s so the focal point.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Noon: A BBC Special

There's just enough time for a channel's original festive film—which stars Guz Khan as a endearingly grumpy man who “avoids Christmas.”

But after he gets an £8,000 Christmas bonus at work, his wife (starring Morgana Robinson) convinces him blowing the money on a holiday to Lapland.

There’s just one issue—he learns there was an error with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to figure out how to return the excess.

Pleasant yet unmemorable.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

1.12pm - Champagne Problems

This is one of those holiday movies where the festive trappings are in the setting—Christmas is the environment of the film rather than its raison d’etre—but it feels comfortable and seasonal all the same.

Driven corporate star Sydney (played by Minka Kelly) is sent to a French chateau to secure an acquisition for a champagne business. En route, she encounters a guy in a bookshop who vows to show her Christmas in Paris.

A commentator recently claimed this is the top new Christmas film of the last several seasons. That’s a bit of a overstatement, but it is a festive dalliance with a touch of class and gives the required cozy feelings.

The scene with a lengthy discussion about Die Hard is particularly strong too.

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄

A Charming Quest

Young Chris, played by Lenny Rush, holds onto his belief in Father Christmas, regardless of the efforts of his dad (starring James Buckley) to tell him the truth.

The secret is out there, and Chris embarks on a quest to find it with the guidance of a panel of well-known experts and celebrities.

It’s gentle but endearing, and ideal viewing while expecting Santa to visit.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

Late Afternoon: Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the head of a dysfunctional American family who reunite for the holidays—including fellow Oscar nominee Felicity Jones, Chloe Grace Moretz, Jason Schwartzman, and dad Denis Leary.

Pfeiffer starts by mentioning holiday staples like National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, It’s A Wonderful Life and Home Alone, before stating: “They need to make a movie about the real champions of the holidays—moms.”

So that’s the premise, but in practice it’s really a combination of those forerunner films, at least until Pfeiffer’s character eventually comes into her own.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Formulaic Fun

The day’s waned in quality, but happily here’s a new entry in the saturated market of predictable, sentimental, cheesy—and highly entertaining—holiday fare.

It’s a tale as well-worn: An American woman goes on a quest to a picturesque cold country and ends up discovering romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher